Ready Set 2008

I've made my resolutions goals for 2008, wished all my garden friends a happy and bountiful 2008 (or at least I just did), and put the garden to bed yesterday.

All that's left is....starting seeds tomorrow!

And I will have pictures.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe evening celebrating the new year!

Best wishes,

Katie

Winter cleanup

We have these two pepper plants that won't die. (Japapeno and Serrano). We even used some in yesterday's breakfast! They haven't been looking too hot, and we knew their days were numbered, but man did we get a lot of peppers out of 'em.



But when I went out today to check on the peas and carrots, I noticed a rotten peppers smell, and sure enough, they are beginning to decompose. So it was time to take them out.

BEFORE


AFTER


Kind of tired and a little under the weather (cold?), so no snarky quips today.

Bookshelf

This is a list of books currently residing in our home library.

(Up to date as of whatever's today's date is thanks to LibraryThing.com)

Not much gardening happening today

water droplets on japanese maple, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

We're in that 3 days rainy, 3 days sunny mode right now (which is awesome because it didn't rain for 45 days this time last year), so there isn't any gardening happening today.

Although I can see through the bathroom window that my peas are starting to swell in their pods! And the green onions are ready to be harvested as needed.

Guess I'll just have to read and daydream today. No problem!

What We Stand For

GardenPunks is the story of a Northern California family doing as much as it can to live organically, thoughtfully, and with regard to the environmental impact of its activities. Expect stories about gardening, food, energy use, consumption, and other things green (and sometimes tasty).


It's not so hard really.




"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about those things that matter." | "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

New Word of the Year: Localvore

Kendra from the crew at greendimes.com posted about this on her blog via Grist, and I thought I would pass it along.

Localvore - a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced food.

That's a wonderful goal. The 100-mile diet.

I sense another addition to my library coming on. But then again, it's pretty straight forward: eat food produced within 100 miles of you.

Living in California, this shouldn't be too hard... purchase averted!

Book Review: The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible

by Edward C. Smith

More Christmas bounty.

This is an easy read (read it Christmas day), with large font and lots of wonderful pictures. Chris lamented that it is somewhat beginner, but I argue the book explains concepts far more thoroughly and visually (beginning to end) than any other gardening book I’ve come across. I think anyone can benefit from the info it contains, beginner or advanced. (Perhaps buy it used if you’re *super master gardener* just in case…)

The premise of the book is WORD: Wide Rows, Organic Methods, Raised Beds, Deep Digging. The author gardens in raised beds with nicely tilthed soil in Vermont, building long, wide mounds with rich, luxurious soil and then leveling them off for planting. Along the way he talks about compost, the importance of pH, and all the other little things gardeners think about like selecting tools, etc.

His setup in Vermont is inspiring, if not jealousy provoking. The pictures are gorgeous, and highly informational in themselves. This book was worth it if just for them.

Things I picked up:
pH importance, greensand as additive, close spacing in raised beds (finally someone tells me!)

Things I Liked:
Our gardens in 2007 were an experiment: we wanted to see how large things grew and what they looked like! (What does a carrot look like when it’s not in a plastic sack in the grocery store?) I had never come across any books to date that contained that sort of visual information until this book graced my fingers. The pictures of crops were enlightening, and the spacing information was exactly what I needed (ie. you can plant closer than the seed packets say), especially given how we garden in raised beds, allowing roots to grow down instead of out. The pictures were the most valuable part for me.

Simple book, simple concepts. Makes it look easy!

Contains cultural info for many common veggies (always love this part of gardening books)

Things that made me go hmmm...
He’s an advocate of raised beds involving deep digging of the native soil. However, we have tall raised beds made of composite lumber because our soil is rocky and clay-like – not much deep digging going on here. As much as I’d love to have really deep soil beds, it isn’t geographically possible without the lumber/timber supports. Although I see his point, and over time perhaps our soil will be conditioned and become more relaxed and workable…

The more books I read, the more different answers I get seed starting dates, and this book was no exception. I’m now in the habit of referring to a local handbook, California Master Gardener Handbook, because it provides regional info. Many vegetables are better planted in the early “Fall” here in NorCal (ie. September when our average high temp is 88-90^o still), because our summers are so hot an unforgiving, and the veggies have to time to ripen before Winter really sets in (peas, for example).

The author has 1500 ft² of beds. We currently have 200 ft², and there’s no way we’ll get to 1500 ft² on our current property. Like I mentioned, his setup is jealousy-inspiring, but I have space-limiting issues in my neck of the woods. I would love to have a couple flat acres, but I don’t. “If he can have such great production in Vermont, you should be able to recreate the success elsewhere.” Flawed argument there. I won’t hold his large plot against him though. Perhaps I AM jealous!

Overall, I thought the book was interesting and worthy of keeping in my library. I will certainly refer to it again and again, and during the long, cold, wet days of winter, look over the pictures and daydream about my gardens in 2008.

Grade: A-

Plant Resolutions Goals

I make lists and goals all the time. Resolutions = goals = list items = things I want to do.

Gina at My Skinny Garden made some garden resolutions for 2008, and Carol at May Dreams Gardens advocates Plant Goals.


Semantics, I say!

Anyhow, here are some things I'd like to accomplish in 2008.

Garden-related
Not let horrible nasty bugs keep me out of my garden during prime harvest times
Weigh and track all harvested fruits and vegetables
Can/freeze/dry as much food for later as possible (especially for homemade XMAS gifts!)
Build a bat house

Sorta garden-related
Learn to better use camera settings
Acquire wide angle lens*
Return to patronizing gym 3-4x per week

Personal
Get up when my alarm goes off
Go to bed earlier
Build my first piece of furniture
More of my personal goals at my 43things.com page

* Requires funds

But more than anything, I'd like the opportunity to sleep as much as this monster.



Happy New Year!

Indeed

This was an excellent Christmas season for me. In ways that far exceeded the wonderful, thoughtful gifts from wonderful, thoughtful people....

1) My Mom, after a health scare in June, is doing better than I've seen her in 20 years. And that is the best present of all.

2) When I mentioned to my Mom at Thanksgiving that I really missed her holiday baking, she swung into full gear and made everything I remember growing up. When she gave me the present of a three tiered candy-cookie extravaganza, I cried. It made my day.

Our wonderful families gave us

The Vegetable Gardener's Bible (which I will review later this week, even though I'm already done with it)
A tripod (for better garden pictures)
An outdoor stovetop for canning outside during the summer (instead of heating up the house)
Ball Canning Guide (450 pgs+)
A garden cart/seat with a new cultivator and shovel, including mini tools for potted plants, and of course, gloves
Oil paintings I did with my Dad as a child - since we "have no art on our walls" per my sister


Christmas Bounty

Along the lines of gardening...

My BIL received a potted rosemary from his parents, and a great book called Herbs: Growing & Using the Plants of Romance... which I immediately hopped on Amazon.com and bought two copies of (one for us, and one for In-Laws). I shall review that soon as well! Everyone seemed to be really into the gardening theme this year, and my FIL was even interested in our compost bin. One convert at a time, I say.

The other great part was it was a much smaller Christmas than in years past, and I think that made all the difference. It was enough to be around family, as we often get caught up in what to buy whom...

Christmas Eve - Family Traditions

Frozen Tree, originally uploaded by gardenpunk.

Chris and I don't have any children, so we're always required to be present at our families' houses on Christmas Day. But somehow this year we lucked out of driving all over hell's half acre on Christmas Day -- we're spending Christmas Eve at my parent's house, and the In-Laws are coming here for breakfast tomorrow! Woohoo!

When it comes to my family, there is one tradition that I look forward to but loathe at the same time...

We all pile into the car, my Dad's Mannheim Steamroller cassette tape blaring over the speakers, and drive around looking at Christmas lights. And we have been doing this since I was a kid!

Hope your Christmas Eve is full of traditions and fun family antics.

Katie

Sunday Bloom Day

Winter is here, but there are a few plants unwilling to stop flowering!

Magenta Daisy


Purple Sage


Blue daisy (it survived the heeling-in transplant!)


And finally, I waited to thin the carrots because we could harvest babies if we let them go a little longer. This is my bundle from today.

I can't tell which is which for the most part, but I believe all of these types are represented:

'Chantenay Red Cored'
'Little Finger'
'Scarlet Nantes'
'Tendersweet'



I don't know much about carrots, but I hope they don't taste bitter, and I hope the forked ones don't mean something bad!

Orange Christmas Lights

The kumquats are nearly ripe. What to do with them now?

Environmentally Friendly Carpet Cleaning?

After our dog stepped in his own poo last weekend and came in our house, I'd had it. Our carpets were FILTHY and with people coming for Christmas, they HAD to get cleaned.

I wasn't able to locate an environmentally friendly carpet cleaning service off hand, and was desperate to get the carpets cleaned, so I found a locally owned company, owner-operator, with a website and scheduled them to come out ASAP. Chris was here when they were cleaning, and said they said this to him after they were done:

"I'm going to spray this lemon scent on your carpets, because often when carpets are really dirty especially with dog dander, the house can smell like wet dog while they're drying."

Seems harmless enough, right? WRONG!

I would have preferred the smell of wet dog over the chemical nonsense that was sprayed on my carpet. (If I wanted my house to smell like effing Pledge I could have sprayed the carpets myself!) I have a sore throat and think it's due to the chemical cocktail that was unleashed on my carpets today. It's no wonder the average newborn baby's cord blood tested has 200 man-made chemicals in it...

So you can be sure that I will be doing some research so next time they're cleaned, it will be environmentally friendly. Even if that means my house will smell like wet dog for a few hours. Beats the alternative.

So soon we forget

Back on 8/29/07...


This morning

It's actually quite eerie how little effort was required to get nearly the same picture both times....yep, same sunglasses!

Garden Gift + New Look Coming Soon

Since my in-laws don’t read this blog, I’ll share with you what we’re giving them for Christmas.

My MIL loves all things “Tuscan” and my FIL loves to cook. So Chris dreamed up the idea of a potted herb garden – serves both aesthetic and functional purposes! We bought them these two pots, with the smaller one to sit raised within the larger one.

Since it’s December and garden centers aren’t carrying herbs, we had to grow our own. We started them from seed on Dec. 1st, in hopes they’d be nice and pretty by the 25th

Only 5 days left - grow little plants…grow!

In our South-facing “Garden Room”, we started:

Rosemary (cutting)
Thyme (cutting)
Cilantro (seed)
Chamomile (seed)
Italian Parsley (seed)
Basil (seed)
Chives (seed)
Mint (seed)

And yes I rotate the pots so the plants can upright themselves daily.

I sure hope my in-laws get lots of use out of this present!

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I haven’t really been happy with the way my blog looks for quite a while now, but with school I haven’t had the time to update and simplify it. Now I have no excuse. I’ve been working on a simpler version that is easier to read, and hope to launch it in the next couple weeks. Happy New Year indeed!

Garden Website Review #1: MyFolia.com

Last week, I was invited to join a little gardening site called MyFolia.com. I was really hesitant because of the content scraping that was going around our little community and figured this was someone trying to take my words and republish them on another page to make $ off my blog (which isn't fair because I don't even get to do that!!)

Anyhow, I took the plunge and signed up. And I have to share with you all how awesome this site is!

Basically, MyFolia is an online garden portfolio that you maintain for your gardens and all of the plants in them. (You can visit their site and take the tour here.)

I've added a couple of my annotated Flickr pictures at this link, and if you click on them it will open in a new page where you can view my comments on certain items of particular interest. I'm a visual learner, and not real adept at explaining things, so I like the guided tour approach. I hope the folks at MyFolia won't mind either...

Like you, I don't have a lot of time to spend on frivilous things that don't help me in the long run. My initial investment of time in MyFolia will pay huge dividends over the next few seasons as I'm able to track seed starting/hardening off/planting dates, first/last frosts, warm spells, how different plants fared over the seasons, and share things I'd grow again.

In the last week, I was able to add different gardens I have, including plants and date planted. I am able to keep track of all of the seeds I have including dates I plant them. I have access to a garden journal, which is better than my little ghetto one I write in that I purchased at Borders last year. It serves as an informational clearing house for your garden and the things in it. I like the Web 2.0 aspect to it in that you can share with and meet other gardeners!

Anyhow, if you're interested in helping them Beta test the site (it is a baby - only 3 months old!), you can sign up here. This site is created by two *real* human beings, Nic and Nath, and I've had the chance to chat with them both over email as well as by posting questions and suggestions. Nic and Nath seem like great people, and I truly hope their site does well.

If you're interested in finding me there, search for gardenpunk (imagine that).

See you at MyFolia.com!

(PS - I'm not linked to this site other than being a Beta user. I'm not getting paid by them to tell you about it, but like all good gardening ideas - this one is too good to keep to myself!)

Organic Beer...mmmm

Chris and I were very interested in making our own beer ever since we found out that hops grow really well in NorCal, but right now we're lacking a trellis for vines. So the next best thing is trying to find organic beer. (Mother Earth News ran an article about it recently as well...)

Well guess what....we found one! And you wouldn't believe who makes it...

Anheuser Busch...aka Budweiser!

Anyhow, it's really quite good. If you can find Wild Hop Lager in your local supermarket, I recommend trying it out. (Although I have to admit, I rarely come across a beer I dislike...except maybe IPAs...)

So there you have it. Organic beer that's very good!

(Celebrating GardenPunks' anniversary I suppose...!)

*************************
EDIT
*************************

Thanks to everyone who set me straight about Anheuser Busch "interpreting" the organic label. In all honesty, I was two deep when I posted this....

Conversation continues over at Future House Farm...

Katie

1 Year of GardenPunks

Happy Birthday GardenPunks!

The focus of this blog has broadened since it's inception on 12/16/2006, and I think it's time to assess the journey thus far.

I originally started this blog as an expression of changing our suburban garden into what we wanted, and serve as a garden notebook for me.

This last year was really an experiment for us. We wanted to see what we could grow ourselves, and in the process discovered that living organically was so much more than gardening and food alone!

While gardening is still a focus of GardenPunks, readers may have noted that posts often dealt more with "green" issues than gardening. I've talked about producing most of the food we eat, my first experience with composting, our recycling and garbage, eating locally, stopping our junk mail dead in its tracks, living in a yurt, creating our backyard orchard, native landscaping.

You get the point.

I won't get into global warming, because I think it's effects are pretty obvious. (Even if you aren't a purveyor of the belief in global warming, mass consumption for the sake of "simply being able to exploit" isn't cool anymore, and green living is in.)

We currently face a great opportunity in our personal lives to make a huge difference. I like to say, you vote with your wallet.

In response to this worldly issue, my life has changed drastically and positively in the last year. We are very involved in getting the production of our own food going and doing whatever we can to have a lesser impact on our Earth. If that means shopping at thrift stores or buying organic products, eating organically within 500 250 miles when possible, wearing warm clothes in the house during the winter, composting everything we can, NOT eating bananas, and once in a blue moon being preachy about our life, so be it.

The "American Way" has become a message of "grow to the size of your fish tank" - consume!

I feel the secret to real happiness comes from simplicity - good people in your life, healthy + local food, and simple living. And that's what this blog has come to represent. The ideal of getting back to basics from our vantage point of where we are today. It will take years, but one idea (and post) at a time will get us there.

GardenPunks has grown and evolved, deserving of a new manifesto:

GardenPunks is the story of a Northern California family doing as much as it can to live organically, thoughtfully, and with regard to the environmental impact of its activities. Expect stories about gardening, food, energy use, consumption, and other things green (and sometimes tasty).

More than anything, thanks for reading and making me feel like part of a wonderful community of great people.

Katie
GardenPunks creator, creative director

Just when you thought you lived in suburbia...

Chris and I were driving home last night, and he noticed a smallish animal turning the corner onto our street.

Chris: "That's a coyote!"
Me: "No way."
Chris: "It is! Look!"

Sure enough, a coyote was scampering down the street away from our house. Really.

It's times like this that I wish I carried my camera around...

Have you heard of this site? MyFolia.com

EDIT: Please check out my awesomely positive review of MyFolia.com here!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just received the following email and wanted to know -

a) Did you receive one to?
b) Have you heard of this site?
c) Experiences?

----------------------------------
You've been sent a Flickr Mail from nic_and_nath:

:: Wondering if you would like to test out our little
gardening site?

Hi there,

We have just built a nice little gardening site that needs
some constructively critical gardening type people to give
it a whirl and see what they think - we have been looking
around on flickr for people with nice photos of their
gardens that also look like they might be interested in a
site like we have...and we found you!

To give you a quick idea of the site: we have linked up
flickr with our site so you can use your own flickr photos
to journal, list and track your plants and seeds and (the
most exciting bit!) see who else is growing the things you
are. For some more info and some screenshots, take a look
here: www.myfolia.com/about/tour

If you think you might be interested in signing up, here is
your invite link that will let you straight into the site:

www.myfolia.com/gardener/nic/invite

If you have any questions, please feel free to reply to
this message and we'll try our best to answer them for you
:)

Many thanks,

Nic and Nath

p.s. if you aren't interested, many apologies for this
message.

------------------------------------------------------------

Has anyone else received this or is a member of this site? I'm not to thrilled that you have to sign up to even see what it's about...

I'm especially leery about things like this, given the current blogosphere happenings as of late. Plus I don't have any time to do much more internet stuff than I already do...

Comment away!

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EDIT: 8:35pm 12/13/07
*************************

I have to admit guys, this is a WAYYY awesome site and has nothing to do with blogging/content scraping. Kind of like a personal database/catalog/MySpace for your gardens, plants, and gardening buddies.

They're Beta testing, and I kind of feel honored that they found me and want me to help them test.

I will let you all know once the site is fully up and running!

Katie

"The First Frost" - The one I got to see

I was able to work from home today, and since I work at 7am, I'm usually out of here before the sun really comes up.

But I was able to finally experience what a frost of my landscape looks like! So exciting.

Alternate post title:
"You might be a garden nerd if..."

Since I couldn't really walk around in the cold, I snapped a quick picture of the oregano and high tailed it back into the house.

Worth Passing Along

From a comment on my Horizon Organic frustration post from Our_SAZ_Life.

The Organic Myth

Thought it was worth reposting because it's exactly as I feared!

The dog strikes again

My wonderful dog Jake was just too excited about the new raised beds that we were trying to prevent him from seeing that he simply jumped over the ghetto chair and tomato cage temporary fence and ran through them as he usually does, smashing all the dirt down.

No we have to replant the onions. ONIONS! Another reason to keep him out of there (dogs can get very ill after eating onions...)

(This was also a test of my FeedBurner.) Thanks to mrbrownthumb for the directions!

Back To Work

I've drawn them a hundred times. I've dreamed about them even. And now, they are a reality.

The raised bed project is complete. Well, at least the construction/building portion of the project.... we still have to erect the rock-outlined bed (with native rocks, no less), and cover the mud with weed fabric and aggregate. But that's really it besides enjoying and using it!

FYI - Longish (but oh so awesome) post follows.

The largest bed measures 20' long x 4' wide. We positioned it parallel to the first set of beds so we could access it on both sides, even though the fence side is triangular and narrow on one edge. Plus we're going to wire trellis that part of the fence, so we wanted to keep it accessible.

The other bed is 14' long x 3' wide, and like the originals we installed in March '07, parallels the house.

Picture parade

Before work could begin, we had to move the pile o'dirt because it was directly in the way of the new bed (right, middle).

This is a "Before" shot I took on 11/11. It shows the location of the new bed on the right. We had to remove a small tree there.

Major Discovery: there is a 1" irrigation pipe right where the tree was, and isn't covered by the new bed install. We can install a valve box and full drip system in the beds! Sweet!




This is how long the sides of this new bed are! We were shocked as we installed it because the ginormity (yes, Katie word) of it wasn't evident on paper.















As usual, Jake supervised. Unfortunately, we have a sneaking suspicion that he has been "marking his territory" in the last few months, and thankfully he can't reach the previously installed raised beds. However, those are 3 boards tall and the new beds are only 2 boards tall.

So, our next project is to install a small garden gate to keep the pup out of the garden unless we're there.

Sorry dude.



Here's a shot of what it looked like before we put the short boards on.

Notice we simply moved the pile o'dirt to another location before we put it in the bed. Having to move that much dirt TWICE in the same day sucked. My back hurts really badly tonight...

Notice all the "implements" as Chris calls them (tools). I swear at one point in the day that every single tool we owned was in the backyard with us for one reason or another...



This is a mason jar with at least an inch of grubs in the bottom. Unfortunately the huge snail is blocking your view of them. We have a Japanese beetle problem - at least the Black Widows eat the adults!

It was comical as we dug through the pile o'dirt finding these. "Ooh, there's one. And another. Sigh. And another." The interest soon wore off and I began hoping we wouldn't find anymore. The interesting part is that they were even in the native clay dirt...those suckers can dig man.




We tucked the new bed in for the night, filling it with the pile o'dirt, and heeling in the blue flowered aster at the other end of the picture. ("Heeling in" is when you have a plant that is sorta planted in the ground, but it will not be its final location, and will be moved relatively soon). It had lived in the pile o'dirt, so it had to be relocated.

(Funny story: I originally purchased the aster because it had blue flowers, which is the name of a song Chris really likes. I got it when he was out of town. Being a good gardener, I cut all of the buds off so it could focus on growing a strong root system, and flower tremendously when the weather cooled slightly in the Fall. Well, because of the California Sycamore tree on the other side of the fence, it was too shady for this to bloom. Chris has never seen the blue flowers, so hopefully where this plant is heeled in will reveal them...Also, I thought all asters were annuals. This one appears to be a perennial!)

Good night new bed! (me with an "implement")













Good morning new bed!












We got up on Sunday with tons to do. We had to get the onions sets in the ground (see Seed Order section below), had a school presentation to finish, Chris wanted to work on his car a little bit, and we had to make a trip to Lowe's to get another post and the caps for the posts. So the other bed had to wait... Since we got a late start after everything else we had to do and it was really cold, I don't have any "during" pictures.

We still need to order some more dirt (guess we know what we're doing next weekend, unless it rains), but you get the idea of the new bed placement.

The original beds we installed were 78 ft² of gardening area. To give you an idea of how big this project was, we added 122ft² of new space. So we now have a total of 200 ft² of gardening area. Holy s! But this girl has big plans, so no inch will go unused. Stay tuned next Summer.





Chris wanted me to take a picture of how we installed the end boards so they would be level. We placed a 2"x6" underneath so the boards could rest on it, and then screwed them in. Unlike the first set of beds, we leveled these ones.... We didn't however dig these into the ground. Instead, if they bow slightly, we will use short lengths of rebar to anchor the middle posts into the ground. As you can see, the posts are hollow and have room for an anchor.






Seed Order

In other news, I made my seed order for next year already. (Picture: Evil Magoo [aka. Travis] was TOO interested, as usual.) I've seen lots of folks talking about all the wonderful catalogs they've received already. I have only received one, and it's the one I ordered from (and still would have no matter how many catalogs I received)... Peaceful Valley Farm Supply. This company is awesome. They're located close to me (Their location in Grass Valley, California is about an hour's drive Northeast of here). They offer a huge selection of organic products, and are actual people - not a huge faceless corporation. Shelly called me personally about my orchard order, and I suspect she was the one who put it together. I am a loyal customer to a fabulous company!

I've put the list of what I ordered at the very bottom of this post, in case you're at all interested. This is on top of what I already have.

We really wanted to get the beds done before Winter really sets in, because it's Folsom's wet season. (We've actually received 3.22" of rain in the last week - which is great, but makes for soggy, muddy work.) The rest of our orchard is set to ship any day now. I bet we'll receive it in time for next weekend or the weekend after. So the more we have done, the better prepared we'll be for a ton o'plants. But I don't know if you can ever be prepared for a larger order like ours.

Last night, I was exhausted. My back was killing me (see a chiropractor regularly, as young as I am), but I wasn't too sore otherwise (thank goodness we go to the gym!). But I was excited. It was like the night before Christmas. I had thoughts of seeds, plants, food, canning, drying, and preserving flooding my head. I can't remember the last time I was this excited, even with the first round of beds. Even Chris shared my sentiment this morning as we were planting the onion sets.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. Seed order info below.

Peaceful Valley Farm Supply seeds
Basil 'Genovese'
Celery 'Tall Utah'
Corn 'Ashworth'
Corn 'Double Standard'
Corn 'True Gold'
Greens 'Arugula'
Chinese Cabbage 'Pak Choi'
Pepper 'Sweet Chinese Giant'
Pepper 'Cal Wonder'
Squash 'Summer Early Crookneck'
Squash 'Winter Butternut'
Tomato 'Roma'
Tomato 'San Marzano'
Turnip 'Golden Globe'
Watermelon 'Moon + Stars'
Sunflower 'Harlequin Mix'

Renee's Garden Seeds
Borage, blue
Chirvil 'Fancy French'
Edamame soy beans
Lettuce 'Romaine Caesar Duo'
Mache 'Gala'
Pepper 'Chile Southwestern Trio'
Pepper 'Jewel Tone Sweet Bell'
Cosmos 'Dancing Petticoats'
Moonflower vine
Nicotiana Jasmine Alata
Poppy 'California Native Orange'
Zinnia 'Decor'
Zinnia 'Cut + Come Again'

Other
Onion Sets (Red)
Onions Sets (Yellow)

Oops? Clarification...

I got into the world of garden blogging because a) I wanted to keep an online journal for myself, b) I wanted to share things I learn that might help other folks, and by way of a and b have realized that c) the garden blogging community is a wonderful group of people that d) has TONS of information to share.

I made a comment on a blog about why older gardeners don’t blog because I was mentioned by Annie from Austin (someone who I admire and who’s blog I really enjoy reading) as a "younger generation gardener." I threw my hat into the ring and commented that I found it interesting that someone in an older generation had a concern that paralleled the one I have – I know so few “younger” people who garden and it frightens me. I thought the parallels of our concerns were valid and interesting.

Perhaps my comment wasn't as clear as I'd hoped it would be. Hanna from This Garden is Illegal posted about the issue as well, and my comment lead a few people to misinterpret what I meant. Understandable. Let me explain:

1) My comment was intended to be an expression of a concern I have as a younger generation gardener that mirrored that of the original author, but in an ironic and interesting way. It was the exact reason I listed when I started my blog last year (See short, sweet to the point 12/16/06 post and manifesto).

2) My comment was NOT intended to flame or accuse anyone of anything. I apologize if it was taken as such.

3) I generalized, perhaps incorrectly, because we know only 1 other couple “our age” – if you will - (25-35) that garden AT ALL - that is landscape and or have a garden of any kind besides grass that is occasionally mowed. I may not know a whole lot of people, but by way of percentages, I would presume more folks I personally know would be more interested. Maybe I need to meet some new people with similar interests?

4) I find it interesting that some folks consider “gardener” a label only befitting that of someone who keeps a meticulous garden and knows a lot about plants. Hell, I couldn't even begin to tell you the Latin names of my plants! People need to give themselves more credit! If you’re stuck on the "label" issue, why not Gardening Apprentice? I consider myself a Suburban Hippie – and like to have fun with labels and titles! (Oxymorons are awesome and tend to be my favorite – GardenPunks and Suburban Hippie for example…. )

I apologize for making generalizing statements that were misinterpreted by some folks. I hope this post goes towards helping you understand where I was coming from.

I think anyone who reads my blog even occasionally understands that I am not a negative person and rarely post a negative blog. I try to be as positive and warm as possible (and try really hard at humor…but sometimes I fail miserably). I also try to keep the mood light. With everything going on these days, the last thing I need to do is start garden blog wars!

Sorry folks.

Katie

EDIT 10/02/09 - I wrote this post when I was still learning the etiquette of blogging and figuring out my own voice.  I'm far more confident in my voice now.  I'm no longer a single voice in the crowd trying to play nice.  I'm not as naive as when I wrote this.  But here I was apologizing for generalizations I may have made.  I think there are some folks out there that need to do the same today.

Happy Holidays from GardenPunks

From our family to yours,

We hope you enjoy the beauty and peace of this holiday season.

Best Wishes,

Katie + Chris

In My Garden - December 2007

These are the raised beds on the South side of our house in the backyard.

This is what shape they are in today (December 2007), including the new beds to be installed in the next few weeks (lumber sitting in the backyard!).


And yes, blow it up large and you'll see my drawing boo boo. (I have a really really old learning version of Photoshop, so it can't do all the cool stuff I want it to do. I have to do things in Word, then screenshot it into Photoshop where I can add the labels.)

Enjoy!

Repurposed Item #1

This is the first post in a series dealing with repurposed household items.

In my house, we enjoy lots and lots of mandarins during the holiday season, which usually come in red mesh bags that take up very little room when empty, but hold a great deal of produce.

As I cut open a bag of them the other day and told Chris,

"Hey, I've seen these types of mesh bags for sale online. They're designed to hold/buy vegetables in a grocery store instead of using those little plastic sacks! They're lightweight and reusable, kind of like the cloth grocery bags we have already."
















What a great idea! I'm putting them in the back of my car with my cloth grocery bags for the next time I go grocery shopping...

Today's Project: Wire Trellising

I was looking at the pea plants growing in our raised beds and tried to think of a way to get them to climb the fences instead of taking up precious room in the beds.

I initially thought about securing bird netting against the fence, but I’m not a huge fan of the net material because of the propensity to catch small animals in it (birds, lizards, etc.) That got me thinking about what material could act as a matrix/web/trellis and give climbers like peas and beans the support they need.

Eyebolts secured to the horizontal posts with wire strung between them would do the trick.

So off we were to the home improvement store to get the necessary materials, and a long-handled hoe for me. (Chris – you can stop laughing every time I say “hoe” already. Thanks.) We picked up some eyebolts, 1/32" wire, and on the recommendation of a co-worker, some ferrule clamps to secure the wire.

Arriving home, we predrilled holes for the eyebolts and installed them on the posts, ensuring each was level with the one directly across from it. We set them 12" apart on the posts.







Then we strung wire between the eyebolts, clamping the wire to the first eyebolt before stringing. We wired straight across, then back across to the next one up, creating a cross-crossing pattern. At the final eyebolt, we again clamped the wire, ensuring it was as taut as we could possibly get it.

We wanted to do the next section of fencing, but I don't think we bought enough wire and it was freezing outside (yeah yeah. Cold to me is 50^o with winds to 16 mph.) Plus I didn't want to rush the project and cut corners, especially since there's not much to plant right now anyway.

Here are some before and after shots.
BEFORE AFTER












FINISHED PRODUCT













Here are all of the tools we used in this project (click for larger view).

Project costs:

$9.94 2 packages of 25 eyebolts
$2.10 2 packages ferrule clamps
$14.30 65' wire (1/32" thickness)
$26.34 TOTAL

This little project took less than an hour. We will definitely repeat this process for other fencing sections as well.



(And PS - if you can't open the pictures larger, I apologize. Blogger is being weird about my pictures in the last few posts. Hopefully it will resolve itself soon.)